If everyone were required to be all-rounders the recruiting and training system would stop producing players who would be physically incapable of going both ways.
The whole system that includes diet and years of physical training would start producing players that are small enough to run competently and also big enough to block competently, instead of outliers on either end of the spectrum of humanity whose bodies are so extreme as to be capable of only a narrow set of tasks.
The game would also become less physically destructive because you would not have such extreme differences in the build of players tackling and players being tackled.
The sport would tend more toward a sweet spot of above-average human rather than extreme outlying specimens.
If you want to see what incredibly fit footballers who run the whole 80 minutes look like, look at Aussie Rules. As a group, they are also the only people who make me feel small, (they tend to tall and muscular). They aren’t as bulky as rugby or gridiron players but they aren’t as light as professional runners either: they are incredible athletes.
I vaguely remember a story about a game between Stanford and either the Giants or A’s where they tested out a method for the catcher to send signals electronically to the pitcher by the catcher pushing a button on his mitt. The problem was, the pitches hit the mitt so hard that they broke the signaling device.
Easy. If you’re the whistleblower, you’re guaranteed no punishment. Others on the team are subject to punishment.
I’m aghast that all the Astros players who were in on it, just as much as the coaches, get a free pass. At the very least, no Astros player should get into the Hall.
Mike Bolsinger, an ex-Blue Jay reliever, is suing the Astros for “harming his career”. Basically he claims that their sign stealing led to his having an absolutely abysmal relief appearance with the Jays that led to his immediate termination with the team.
The details are in the link, but what happened to him in 0.1 of an inning makes for an interesting case.
And I’m OK with that. I’d like to see every single Dodger and Yankee pitcher go head-hunting against the Astros. Every single batter that was on the team in 2017. And none of that “plunk them on the butt” shit either. You cashed a check for cheating, you better have a damn good helmet. (Yeah, yeah - shut up. This is my fantasy.)
Better yet, the Dodgers and Yankees can just refuse to play either the Astros or the Red Sox. Just forfeit the games. Think of the size of the asterisk that would make in the record books!
As to the Mike Bolsinger suit, I hope he wins just to hurt the Astros, but he won’t and probably shouldn’t. Bolsiner has to prove that his terrible outing against Houston and subsequent release was the reason he didn’t get an MLB contract in 2020, but the confounding evidence against that theory is enormous:
Bolsinger was a marginal MLB pitcher at best. He had an okay season for the Dodgers in 2015, but was sub replacement level all the rest of the time. He had pitched badly for Toronto up to that point and was only on the team because other guys were hurt.
Major league teams simply don’t get rid of guys for one bad game out of eleven. That does not happen. The Blue Jays got rid of him because of all eleven games he pitched for them as a whole. Bolsinger’s numbers in the previous ten were subpar, to put it mildly.
I mean, it’s possible Mike would have gotten more MLB time had he not gotten beaten up (it was also the last MLB game for another marginal Jays pitcher that day, Cesar Valdez, so I guess you never know) but MLB generally doesn’t work that way. If Bolsinger had MLB talent, he’d likely be in MLB.
In that story Justin Verlander is quoted as saying “We were successful in the World Series last year." WTF? Well maybe somewhat, just not quite enough.
Safest bet in the coming season is that the Astros lead MLB in being hit by pitches. As long as they’re getting hit in the hips, I’m fine with that- they deserve it. I wonder if Gerrit Cole will comply if Gary Sanchez tells him to drill Altuve.
I am not a baseball expert in any way, so you can ignore what I say here. And I’m sure you will.
But why not just open up the game to “anything goes”? Steal signs, don’t use signs, anticipate signs, whatever. Use electronics, don’t use electronics. Will anything different happen? If one team steals (recognizes) the signs from another, and the second steals signs from the first, who has the upper hand, if any?
Has anyone proved that knowledge of the other team’s signs is an advantage? Might the outcome be nothing more than random chance, no matter what?